Acts of the Apostles 2:14, 22-32

14 Peter stood with the other eleven apostles. He raised his voice and declared, “Judeans and everyone living in Jerusalem! Know this! Listen carefully to my words!22 “Fellow Israelites, listen to these words! Jesus the Nazarene was a man whose credentials God proved to you through miracles, wonders, and signs, which God performed through him among you. You yourselves know this.23 In accordance with God’s established plan and foreknowledge, he was betrayed. You, with the help of wicked men, had Jesus killed by nailing him to a cross.24 God raised him up! God freed him from death’s dreadful grip, since it was impossible for death to hang on to him.25 David says about him, I foresaw that the Lord was always with me; because he is at my right hand I won’t be shaken.26 Therefore, my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced. Moreover, my body will live in hope,27 because you won’t abandon me to the grave, nor permit your holy one to experience decay.28 You have shown me the paths of life; your presence will fill me with happiness.29 “Brothers and sisters, I can speak confidently about the patriarch David. He died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this very day.30 Because he was a prophet, he knew that God promised him with a solemn pledge to seat one of his descendants on his throne.31 Having seen this beforehand, David spoke about the resurrection of Christ, that he wasn’t abandoned to the grave, nor did his body experience decay.32 This Jesus God raised up. We are all witnesses to that fact.

Peter had put all his hope in his beloved friend, Jesus, only to
see him cruelly crucified. Jesus had healed the sick, fed the
hungry, comforted the desperate, and preached good news to the
poor. Through all these signs and wonders, Peter’s faith in God
must have grown stronger than...

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Psalm 16 and Acts 2 fit together, since the latter quotes the former. Both celebrate God’s presence in human life and the powerful expression of that presence. In his Pentecost sermon Peter sees a messianic application of the psalm to the resurrection of Jesus. First Peter affirms that resurrection creates community, stressing the faith and love of Christians that arise without the experience of physical contact with Jesus. For later generations, belief and commitment are born out of the witness of others.

Questions and Suggestions for Reflection

• Read Acts 2:14a, 22-32. When has a life experience made you, like Peter, feel that your faith was a sham? How did you move past that experience into renewed hope?
• Read Psalm 16. When have you perceived God as refuge? How has your faith in God steadied your life? What is your “goodly heritage”?
• Read 1 Peter 1:3-9. What act of power and grace on God’s part allows you to reconfigure or reinterpret your life story?
• Read John 20:19-31. When have you employed the power to release others from their sin? to leave them in their sin?